After the third play of the game, a third-down incompletion from quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, New York Jets fans started loudly booing. It’s like they knew what was coming and were warming up early. NFL players and coaches bristle whenever the word “quit” is brought up. But if what we saw on Monday night in a 41-10 loss to the Indianapolis Colts was the Jets actually trying, they’re even worse than we thought.

When I called my father back home in Oregon on a recent Sunday, he rattled off his thoughts about the election, the health of his two dogs and queries about holiday plans. But, as the child of a sports-loving house (Go, Ducks!), I was most surprised by what my dad wasn’t talking about on Sunday — football. He’s not alone in his waning interest. This season, ratings for professional football are down 27 percent across all of the major networks: ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS, according Forbes. The decline in the ratings underscores a bigger truth that no one wants...

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has purchased a $3.21million condominium in Manhattan. Kaepernick, who recently put his San Jose, California home up on the market, bought a 1,733 sq ft unit with two bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms. The apartment building in TriBeCa also features oversized windows, a whirlpool tub in the master bathroom and vaulted ceilings.

A retired Marine Colonel’s open letter to the commissioner of the NFL about recent protests of the national anthem is going viral. The Marine thoroughly and consistently destroyed Roger Goodell for lacking the “moral courage and respect” it takes to do something about players disrespecting our military heroes by sitting down during the national anthem.

Ballistic evidence and autopsy results show Ronald Gasser, the man authorities say admitted to fatally shooting Joe McKnight, did not fire on the former NFL player while standing over him, Jefferson Parish authorities said. "The wounds are not consistent with being shot from above while on the ground," Jefferson Parish Coroner Dr. Gerry Cvitanovich said, as he discussed McKnight's autopsy during a press conference Friday (Dec. 2). The information contradicts a witness account given at the scene of McKnight's death Thursday at a Terrytown intersection. The witness had said she saw Gasser shoot McKnight twice, then stand on top of...

A large latte. A McPick 2. Two gallons of gas. Yes, the cost of a ticket to a Cleveland Browns game isn't any more than say, a cup of coffee, a fast-food lunch or fuel to drive about 50 miles. For fans of the Browns, who are dangerously close to becoming the second team in NFL history to go 0-16 in a single season, tickets for the team's last two home games are so cheap, it's hard to think of a reason not to go. Other than misery.

Barring a miracle, the San Diego Chargers are expected to exercise the team's option to move to Los Angeles in 2017, sources told ESPN's Jim Trotter. During the NFL owners meetings in January, in which the league approved the relocation of the Rams to Los Angeles, the Chargers were granted the option to relocate to L.A. with a deadline of Jan. 15, 2017.

It’s been a rather strange 2016 season in the NFL. Teams expected to be among the top contenders (Colts and Packers) are fighting for their playoff lives, while teams not expected to do much (Raiders and Cowboys) sit atop their divisions and look to secure home-field advantage. Such unpredictability helps make the NFL exciting and fun each year. Two playoff contenders, the Cowboys and Vikings, will battle it out on Thursday Night Football this week. The Cowboys own the NFC East with the best record in the NFL (10-1). They’re also riding a 10-game winning streak thanks to rookie quarterback...

The Nielsen estimates revealed that ESPN lost 555,000 subscribers during the last month. In other words, ESPN essentially lost the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. This, coming on the heels of last month, the worst month in ESPN history, where the network lost 621,000 subscribers. In the last two months, ESPN has lost 1,176,000 subscribers, a subscriber loss nearly the size of the city of Dallas, Texas. ...explanation for the network’s cratering subscriber base. ESPN Ombudsman Jim Brady, admitted that the network lurched way too far to the left in recent years, alienating many viewers.

The NFL’s narrative that the elections ruined their ratings took a substantial blow on Monday when the overnight numbers for NBC’s Sunday Night Football became available. Hint: they did not impress. NBC’s broadcast of the Chiefs vs. Broncos on SNF came in a staggering 27 points behind last year’s Week 12 SNF matchup featuring the Patriots and the Broncos. Sure, Patriots-Broncos makes for a more compelling watch than Chiefs-Broncos, but does not justify a thirty-point ratings difference. Not to mention the fact that the presidential election ended three weeks ago, which makes pinning the NFL’s woes on the “quadrennial silly...

Miami Dolphins fans mercilessly booed San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick Sunday afternoon in Miami. Kaepernick has been in the news recently after a tense exchange over the merits of recently deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro with a local Florida reporter. Miami, which has a large Cuban population, didn’t let Kaepernick forget about it. As he took the field the stadium broke out into an insane amount of booing.

Curse of Kaepernick! Quarterback coincidentally defends wearing Castro t-shirt HOURS before Cuban dictator's death is announced - and Twitter is quick to bask in his ill-timed comments Colin Kaepernick wore a Fidel Castro t-shirt in August, sparking outcry He defended the move in comments made public on Friday afternoon Praised the Cuban leader for his 'education system' in an interview Castro's death was announced by his grieving brother Raul hours later Twitter users were quick to point out Kaepernick's ill-timing Controversial San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick unwittingly found himself at the center of another storm on Friday as his...

A onetime friend of Aaron Hernandez who claims the former NFL star shot him in the face in Florida filed a lawsuit Monday against CNN, alleging the network invaded his privacy when it aired images of him recovering from the gunshot wound in a West Palm Beach hospital. Lawyers for Alexander Bradley, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Connecticut.

With the 49ers visiting the Dolphins this week, San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick engaged in a conference call with members of the South Florida media. However, one reporter wanted to discuss something that happened in August, when Kaepernick wore a shirt that appeared to show support for Fidel Castro, which led to a tense exchange. (snip) According to the Palm Beach Post, a Miami Herald reporter began pressing Kaepernick about the shirt during the call Wednesday. The quarterback initially chose to emphasize the fact that Malcolm X was also on it, saying that it showed the slain civil rights activist’s willingness...

EXCERPT According to Mark Waller, the NFL’s international chief, the NFL is hoping tonight’s game in Mexico will also become a recurring international game. “My goal would be similar to the U.K., where we’re able to go back at least once a year and create our piece of the Mexico City sporting calendar,” Waller said, according to NFL.com. “Mexico City has the size of NFL fan base that would rival any city in the United States. The area is 22 million people. It’s a huge and very passionate fan base.” Tonight’s game is part of the NFL’s larger effort to...

Are the Patriots becoming the official football team of Donald Trump? Certainly seems that way, given that hardly a day goes by without another high-profile member of the Patriots family being tethered to our president-elect. Related Articles Patriots defense knows it must toughen up: Â‘We obviously have more pride than thatÂ’ Patriots Notebook: The idea of starting isnÂ’t a foreign concept to tight end Martellus Bennett Patriots mailbag: Which AFC West team poses the greatest threat in playoffs? First, it was the quarterback, Tom Brady. Then, it was the coach, Bill Belichick. Now, itÂ’s the owner, Robert Kraft, who is...

Houston Texans players are being advised by the team not to leave the hotel and not to order room service during their trip to Mexico City for Monday night’s game against the Oakland Raiders. The game is part of the NFL’s international series and the first NFL game in Mexico City since 2005. The Associated Press obtained a memo distributed to the team on Wednesday that included a page of information concerning the trip to Mexico, including those two rules.

Perhaps panic over the NFL’s evaporating television audience was premature. On the first post-election Sunday, the league’s ratings surged thanks to two marquee match ups. According to NBC, Seahawks-Patriots drew the network its biggest Week 10 Sunday Night Football audience in five years. Meanwhile in Fox’s late-afternoon window, the Cowboys’ 35-30 win over the Steelers was the NFL’s highest-rated individual game this year. However it’s indisputable that NFL viewership lagged over the season’s first half. Entering Week 9, industry experts peg total NFL consumption down about 14 percent. In a memo sent from the NFL office in early October, the...

Colin Kaepernick is standing behind his decision not to vote in the presidential election or even register to take part in the democratic process, saying he can effect change in other ways besides through a ballot. The San Francisco 49ers quarterback has knelt through the national anthem all season to protest police brutality and the treatment of minorities, drawing criticism and acclaim alike. He took more heat for not voting last week. “I thought a lot of different things about the process and what I could and couldn’t do,” he said Tuesday. “Once again, the system of oppression is what...

NOVEMBER 15--NFL star Von Miller, the reigning Super Bowl MVP, is seeking to quash the distribution of a sex tape that was recorded several months ago while the Denver Broncos linebacker was vacationing in Mexico, The Smoking Gun has learned. Lawyers for the 27-year-old athlete last week petitioned a Los Angeles judge to issue a restraining order barring Miller’s sex partner from selling or commercially exploiting the tape, which the Los Angeles woman filmed with her phone and reportedly offered to sell to Miller for $2.5 million. While the Los Angeles Superior Court action only lists the name “Doe” as...

Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans knelt during the playing of the national anthem on Sunday before the Bucs took on the Chicago Bears. Evans had not previously appeared among the NFL players taking part in Colin Kaepernick’s protest.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans, who starred at Texas A&M and Galveston Ball High School, took a knee during the National Anthem before Sunday's game, but he didn't do it for the same reason as some other players in the NFL. Evans explained after the game that he kneeled during the anthem for the first time this season because Donald Trump has been elected president.

"One of the greatest days of my life," a white offensive lineman from the AFC told B/R. "Easily one of the worst days of my life," said a black offensive lineman, also from the AFC. "It's like my dog died. Worse." The reaction from NFL players to me in the wake of Donald Trump's election as the nation's 45th president was swift and long-lasting. It carried through election night, into the next morning, and throughout Wednesday. Over two dozen players expressed themselves in numerous complex thoughts, simple outbursts and heated arguments with me. The general feeling among the six white...

At 3-6, the Jets don't feel like they're in a position to be discussing anything but football. So many players avoided questions about the election Wednesday in Florham Park. One Jet who didn't was Brandon Marshall, who offered an interesting — if somewhat perplexing — perspective on President-elect Donald Trump. "The good thing about it is we have a flawed man in office leading our country who's had some really public, nasty things go on," said Marshall, who wouldn't disclose who he voted for or if he voted at all. "I think that's a good thing because we put certain...

Wednesday, ESPN2 “First Take” co-host Stephen A. Smith reacted to San Francisco 49ers quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick sitting out on voting in the 2016 election by delivering one of his greatest rants ever. Smith called Kaepernick “shameful” and a “flaming hypocrite” for kneeling for the national anthem until change is made but choosing not to vote to make the change he wants. The ESPN host urged fellow media members to take the camera and spotlight off of Kaepernick because his protests have meant “absolutely nothing.” Partial transcript as follows: As far as I’m concerned, Colin Kaepernick is irrelevant. I...

Chargers’ stadium vote fails miserably, clouding future in San Diego A ballot measure in San Diego that would have raised hotel taxes to pay for a new Chargers stadium came up far short of the required two-thirds vote Tuesday, leaving the team with an uncertain future in the city. Measure C, as the initiative was known, would have allowed city officials to raise hotel-room taxes from 12.5 percent to 16.5 percent and use that revenue to pay for a new downtown stadium and convention-center annex next to Petco Park, where the Padres play baseball. But the measure received support from...

Based on the 27-0 score, most people believed that the late September Thursday Night Football game between the Patriots and the Texans accomplished nothing more than Bill Belichick once again proving his brilliance, as he annihilated a then 2-0 football team with his third string quarterback. Unbeknownst to all until now, that early season matchup accomplished perhaps an even more impressive feat by becoming the only primetime NFL game this year that did not decline in ratings from last year.

The NFL continues to have a ratings problem, even as the league barrels toward the second half of the season and coverage of the presidential election is winding down ahead of Election Day. Monday Night Football once again took a ratings tumble year-over-year, as the Vikings-Bears Halloween matchup drew a 7.2 overnight rating, which is down 18 percent from Colts-Panthers in Week 8 of 2015 (8.8), according to Austin Karp of SportsBusiness Daily. Sunday Night Football took a big hit as well, losing to Game 5 of the World Series in the Oct. 30 ratings battle by a margin of...

BOSTON (CBS) — There are many reasons why the NFL’s ratings are down in 2016. You may be dismissive of the very idea that the backlash to the national anthem protests, sparked by the 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick, has played a role in the NFL’s TV ratings, which have dropped by about 12 percent year-over-year. To continue to dismiss that is to blatantly ignore legitimate data on the subject. A fresh poll from Seton Hall surveyed 841 adults across the U.S. Each respondent was asked to identify seven separate factors as a reason for the NFL ratings drop, allowing them to...

The NFL's television ratings are down across the board and the league has blamed the decline on the presidential election. However, if that were the biggest reason, we would expect to see a similar decline in the MLB playoffs and that has not been the case. After posting strong TV ratings during the early rounds of the playoffs, the World Series is off to a huge start with fans, averaging more than 19.0 million viewers through two games, according to Sports Media Watch. That's up 32% from last year and matches the Yankees-Phillies matchup in 2009 for the top-rated World...

Hillary Clinton’s Pander Express pulled into “The Breakfast Club” today and she attempted to explain her support for the New York Yankees — but also for the Chicago Cubs. After one of the hosts showed her his t-shirt featuring a photo of Clinton in a Yankees hat, he said, “I heard you were a Cubs fan,” about halfway through the interview. “I am,” she responded, “that’s my National League team.” “Y’all in the Super Bowl, I mean the World Series,” he said. “Yeah, we’re in the Super Bowl,” Clinton said, before the other hosts jumped in to correct her. “World...

RUSH: This is from America's Newsroom this morning on Fox. They had a sports reporter there by the name of Jared Max. He was talking about the World Series. Question: "The series has gotten an enormous amount of hype as being historic and exciting for the entire Midwest and the rest of the country. How do you think it's looking for so far on that measure," Jared? MAX: We're talking so much every week about numbers down to the NFL. You know, several years ago people said, "America's pastime? No, the NFL rules the league." Well, NFL ratings are down...

...It took a few games, but the inevitable happened: Tim Tebow recorded a hit... ...All in all, Tebow has been very aggressive at the plate. Most of his at-bats have been two- or three-pitch affairs, with only a handful going on for any more length. His eye at the plate is coming along, and he hasn’t really swung at too many pitches that were clearly balls, but his baseball skills are still at a point where when he does get pitches to hit, he has trouble squaring up on them, rolling over more than one fastball right down Broadway. He...

ABC / CBS / NBC need to go. Turns out the NFL is key to their profits. Check out this story: The key worry here is the idea that the networks are dependent on the NFL and its huge ratings. If the NFL suddenly collapses or just regresses, those huge revenue streams that are driving the networks will start to slow. http://www.businessinsider.com/pacific-west-says-nfl-ratings-will-fall-2016-1 Along with displaying the absolute lack of respect shown to our nation and flag by players not standing for our national anthem, turns out key to putting these PRAVDA media centers out of business is just one click...

If no one goes to a 49ers game, does it actually happen? The answer to that question is yes, because the 49ers' 34-17 loss to the Buccaneers on Sunday is definitely going to count in the standings, even though almost no one showed up for the game.

At the risk of getting repetitive, fewer viewers tuned into a primetime NFL game. The Week 7 Bears/Packers Thursday Night Football game earned 14.2 million viewers on CBS and NFL Network Thursday night, down 17% from Seahawks/49ers last year (17.1M) and down 12% from Jets/Patriots in 2014 (16.1M). Ratings were not immediately available. The Packers’ win earned the fourth-smallest audience for a Thursday Night Football simulcast on CBS (22 telecasts). Three of the five smallest audiences have come in the past three weeks, with 49ers/Cardinals in Week 4 ranking second (12.1M) and Broncos/Chargers in Week 5 fifth (14.5M). The game...

I know that Thanksgiving is still a month away, but if we want to wage an effective NFL boycott, then a little community organizing is in order. Thanksgiving is the most important day of the football season for American patriots to send a message to Roger Goodell. On this day, we give thanks for the greatest country in the world.......a country that Colin Kaepernick says was never great. Kaepernick is entitled to his opinions. But by allowing Kaepernick, and other players who share his sentiments, to use NFL games as a venue to express these views, Goodell is tacitly endorsing...